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Liberalism is right wing economically and left wing socially. At least in the 19th and early 20th century sense. Today it depends where you are

edgyquant 3y ago
No Liberalism takes no stance on social issues as the liberal idea is that isn’t something the government should regulate, full stop.
- zajio1am 3y ago
  One of the foundational text of liberalism, 'On Liberty' from J. S. Mill, is pretty clear that the threat to individual liberty is not just from the government, but from the society itself: Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant - society collectively, over the separate individuals who compose it - its means of tyrannising are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own.
- twelvechairs 3y ago
  No that's left wing socially. > the liberal idea is that isn’t something the government should regulate, full stop. This is true but opposite to right wing socially which is traditional class, religion in government, gender roles, ethnocentrism etc. Most of the 19th century was liberalism opposed to conservatives on these issues (in Europe it was a lot of removing power from religion and a historic ruling class).

edgyquant 3y ago

No Liberalism takes no stance on social issues as the liberal idea is that isn’t something the government should regulate, full stop.

zajio1am 3y ago
One of the foundational text of liberalism, 'On Liberty' from J. S. Mill, is pretty clear that the threat to individual liberty is not just from the government, but from the society itself: Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant - society collectively, over the separate individuals who compose it - its means of tyrannising are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own.
twelvechairs 3y ago
No that's left wing socially. > the liberal idea is that isn’t something the government should regulate, full stop. This is true but opposite to right wing socially which is traditional class, religion in government, gender roles, ethnocentrism etc. Most of the 19th century was liberalism opposed to conservatives on these issues (in Europe it was a lot of removing power from religion and a historic ruling class).